I was very distressed to see the "By the Numbers" chart accompanying the Sept. 10 Hunterdon County Democrat article about the PennEast pipeline.
To the editor:
I was very distressed to see the "By the Numbers" chart accompanying the Sept. 10 Hunterdon County Democrat article about the PennEast pipeline.
The chart claims 12,000 jobs "the pipeline would support" but that's kind of a fantasy number. They admittedly include, for example, the driver of the taco truck which delivers lunch to workmen onsite.
The 2,500 "local jobs expected to be created during construction" include more jobs in Pennsylvania than in New Jersey; in fact, a large proportion of them will be workers from other states with expertise in pipeline construction, which is expected to last only about seven months.
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The most egregious misstatement in the chart, which I very much doubt PennEast bothered to clarify, is that "4.7 homes would be heated." There are only 3.9 million homes in the whole state of New Jersey, so even if you assume (a) that every one of them wants and can use natural gas; and (b) that none of them has access to it now (in fact, 65-percent do), this is very misleading.
In fact, each of the six partners in the PennEast consortium has connections to European markets for gas, a fact they tout in their shareholder reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission but do not see fit to share with us ordinary folks.
A recent Department of Energy report states that we are only using 46-percent of our existing pipeline carrying capacity so one wonders why we need another one.
Many Hunterdon County residents are all too aware of the multitude of threats posed by this project, but the PennEast consortium of six gas companies continues to pull out all the stops to hide their real intent and to obscure the damage they will do to the lives of our residents.
It is disgraceful the way they have bullied property owners on the route, zoomed over their houses with low-flying planes and helicopters, trespassed on their property, sent them threatening letters, refused to acknowledge certified letters the residents send in protest, tried to bribe local fire and rescue companies with small "grants," and presented themselves as patriotically providing cheaper gas when in their internal documents they are clear that consumers will have to pay the one billion dollar cost of this pipeline.
In addition, all Hunterdon County residents to some extent may be affected by loss of natural and recreational areas, clean drinking water, lowered property values for those anywhere near the pipeline, and safety for anyone whose home, school, or place of worship is within the incinerator blast area.
Please know that PennEast is starting to run scared because they know they face tremendous opposition from every affected township and county government, thousands of informed residents, and nearly every conservation/environmental group in this area.
Their public face is to arrogantly presume FERC will approve this project as FERC always does, but they - and hopefully FERC - are finding it harder and harder to ignore the storm warnings from a furious public.
Andrea M. Bonette
East Amwell Township